Rise of The Iron Eagle: The Iron Eagle Series Book One
by Roy A. Teel Jr
Summary: Is The Iron Eagle a psychotic serial killer? Or a new breed of Justice? Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Detective Jim O'Brian and FBI Profiler Special Agent Steve Hoffman are hunting for a brutal serial killer; however, this case defies the profiling rules both men have been trained to detect. "The Iron Eagle" appears to only hunt and capture serial killers.


**RATING: MA**

"_All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."_ Edmund Burke

"_Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged."_ Samuel Johnson

**Seal of The Iron Eagle**

1

"What's The Iron Eagle?"

The old man looked at the bum asking the question with disdain. "The Iron Eagle isn't a thing; it's a person – if you can call him that. He's one of the sickest serial killers I've ever come across in all my years in this business." The bum was sitting next to the office building where the old man had his office. "You's Barry Mullin, ain't ya?" The old man didn't answer. "Yea, I recognizes ya from the paper, though it's been a few years. I heard you's a drunk, only yous gots a home." The old man didn't say anything; he just kept walking toward the entrance of the building. He was slow, but he was walking. The bum called out again. "Hey! Yous don't have to be rude. I knows your face, that's all. Can yous spares a cuppa bucks for a fellow drunk?" Mullin kept walking. "You snotty piece a shit … I knows yous gotta few bucks." The old man yelled back, still walking, "Not for a son-bitch like you."

He saw Bruce Provonce, the building super, whom he yelled at. "It's fuckin' July, asshole, and it's a hot one. How 'bout some air?" He kept walking toward the stairs as Bruce yelled back. "You want air, old man? Open a fuckin' window; and while you're at it, pay your goddamn rent. You owe me now two weeks back." The old man brushed him aside with his hand as he started up the four flights of stairs to his office. He pondered the question from the bum, and the fact that he had recognized him. It had been a long time since anyone he didn't know recognized him. He hadn't been called by his first name in years. He liked being called 'old man' because he felt it justified his shitty attitude toward people. He passed one of his neighbors on the way up who offered a friendly greeting. He just shrugged and told him to shut up. He finally made the ascent to his office, unlocked the door, and removed two bottles of cheap scotch and a twelve pack of beer from the brown paper bag he had been carrying under his arm. He knew that Steve Hoffman would be coming soon to retrieve his instructions. He put the beer in the small fridge and placed the two bottles of scotch on an old filing cabinet next to his desk. Bruce had followed him up to his office and was standing in the doorway when he turned around.

"Where's my fuckin' rent?" The old man walked over to his easy chair, pulled a cigarette from his pocket, and lit it. "There's no smoking in this building, asshole; it's the law. Put it out." Mullin sat down and took a drag and blew the smoke at Bruce. There was an open can of warm beer and a half-eaten bag of whole peanuts next to him on an old TV tray. He grabbed the two and took a drink and popped a few nuts in his mouth. "Look, asshole, I want my damn rent … now cough it up." Mullin scowled in frustration, finally reaching into his pocket and pulling out a wad of bills with a small white piece of paper wrapped around it. He fanned out the bills and peeled off four hundreds and threw them at Bruce. He walked in to pick up the money then drew back with a look of disgust. "Now was that so damn tough?" The old man didn't respond. "This place smells like a combination of sewer and sweat shop. You're not a hebe. Why don't you shower once in a while? And clean this fuckin' place up; it's a pigsty in here. If the Health Department ever raids me, they'll close me down for good." Mullin just sat drinking his beer. Bruce turned to leave and said, "I'll talk to Steve. He seems to be the only person you listen to anymore. I don't want him to end up an alcohol-soaked bum like you. He has a reputation in this town, a helluva lot better one than you. The boy's educated, and, unlike you, he gives back to society in his work." The old man didn't say a thing. He just sat smoking and drinking. The door closed, and he could hear Bruce mocking the words on his door. "'Barry Mullin, Private Investigator.' You couldn't investigate your head out of your ass." His voice faded as he walked away and down the stairs. The old man yelled back at him. "Don't you go gettin' the boy involved in my business, you son-bitch, or I'll kick your ass."

He sat in his sweltering office, brushing the remnants of peanut shells off his shirt; the sweat had pooled around his neck, and his bald head shined in the afternoon light. His pale thin skin and gaunt face made him look malnourished. He had a cigarette burning between the fingers of his left hand, and the yellow stain from the tar of his smokes had formed a yellowish brown ring around his fingers. Steve came in but didn't say a word. The smell of sweat, body odor, beer, booze, and cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air. He wouldn't be in this environment for anyone but the old man. He had been kind to him in his own way through his formative years. Now in his early thirties, everything he knew about the world and the people in it, or scum as the old man called them, he learned from him. He felt he owed him, so he dealt with the shit that Mullin dealt and helped him.

The old man saw him enter and without saying a word reached into the pocket of his bootcut jeans and pulled out a hundred dollar bill wrapped around a slip of folded white paper and handed it to him. Until Steve broke the silence, the only sound in the room was the hum of an old box fan in the office window. "You sure you want me to do this?" The old man looked up at him with an icy stare. "Boy … I've been doin' this shit for forty years. I picked up the tip from the police scanner. I know where they think he will strike next, and I'm gonna be there first. Got it?" He nodded. "I'm gonna go get that son-bitch." The old man's voice was gravely from years of smoking and drinking. Steve recalled stories the old man had told him about his years as a U.S. Marshal. He had been retired for nearly 20 years and started his own private investigation service right after retirement.

The old man stood up from his chair and walked across the small one room office to a steel desk where papers and folders were strewn all over. There were several full ashtrays on the desk along with the bottles of scotch and a couple of empty and half empty bottles. He reached around to the back, opened the center drawer, and grabbed a carton of cigarettes along with one of the near empty bottles, then pushed some of the papers out of the way and went back to his chair. The wall behind the desk was covered with awards and certificates. Steve remembered the story of the Mission Stalker and how the old man had tracked him down when the cops couldn't figure out the case. That guy had killed ten people before the old man caught him. There was a yellowing framed front page newspaper in the middle of all of his awards and certificates. The banner headline read, _"America's Top PI Catches the Mission Stalker – All Can Rest Easy Tonight." _It was stories like that that had inspired him and kept him trying to help the old man. He had been like a father to Steve, who referred to his biological father as a "sperm donor." The old man yelled, "Get away from my fuckin' desk," as he wiped a dribble of scotch from his chin. His speech was slightly slurred, but he had seen him much worse.

He walked back over to the office door. The old man sat in his chair with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and ordered Steve to get him another beer from the small refrigerator. He complied and then sat down on the corner of a small filing cabinet next to the office door. "Are you sure about this, old man? I mean, this guy has killed 30 or more folks. He's not your run of the mill serial killer." The old man cracked open the beer and took a sip then sat the can on the arm of his chair and took a deep drag off his cigarette. "You worried 'bout me boy?" Steve nodded. "Now what the fuck makes you think this guy's any different from any of the rest of the sons-a-bitches I caught in the past? That university you graduated from messed up your head." There was a tipping point when speaking to the old man, and once he pissed him off there would be no further opportunity to speak. "This guy's different … he's … savage." The old man pressed his back against his chair in a stretch, and with a yawn in his voice said, "We're all savage, boy…that's the nature of the beast. Only this guy's going to be more satisfying to get." "Why?" "Because he killed my granddaughter."

There was silence. Steve hadn't known. "Now, get your ass out of here and get me the things on that paper. Meet me at Legion Park at nine sharp tonight and don't fuckin' be late." Steve left the office and walked out to his car. He pulled the cash and the note from his pocket and went over the things on it. He was surprised by the content of the list:_ a box of latex gloves, two bottles of rubbing alcohol, a pair of medical scissors, three two-liter bottles of Pedialyte, two gallons of distilled water, a bag of salt, a bag of sugar, _and a few other items. He looked at the list for a long time before he entered the local drugstore to pick them up. He knew from the items on the list that the old man had more than catching a killer in mind. After he made the purchase he had a few dollars left, so he stopped and bought a sandwich. It was nearly seven, and he had some time to kill. He nervously watched as the second hand on the clock on Jerry's Deli wall clicked in steady persistence toward an unknown future.

Back at his office, the old man was packing a bag with every kind of medical supply imaginable. He had two collapsible IV poles and IV and catheter tubing. He placed several vials of a prescription anesthetic that he could dissolve into an inhalable solution to knock out his prey, as well as several different kinds of surgical tools, into the bag. He also pulled a nine millimeter handgun out of his desk drawer and placed it in his shoulder holster. He placed two twelve gauge shotguns in his bag with several large syringes and needles in sealed medical kits. He had his own emergency room, and he was taking it all with him. One thing was certain – he wasn't planning on turning this sicko over to the police. He had plans of his own.

Legion Park was right off Interstate 10 in Boyle Heights, one of the roughest parts of Los Angeles. If you were looking for anything illegal … this was your shopping center. Drugs, guns, hookers, anything a low life scum could want was there. The old man pulled into a parking spot well away from the action in a dark corner of the lot. He sat in the car with the window half down, smoking a cigarette when he heard the sound of Steve's car pull in next to him. The old man popped his trunk open and didn't make a move. He sat there enjoying his smoke, waiting for the goods to be placed in the trunk. The old man was a well-known figure in the park, the only "white boy" allowed according to the local gangs. He had no concerns about the element. Hell, he passed out there at least twice a month after dropping off one of the girls he picked up for entertainment. It was a strange relationship he had with this element.

He was a former law man and every one of them knew it, but for some reason they watched out for him. He couldn't count how many times he had woken up the next day in his car after passing out – the key in the ignition; the windows up in winter, down in summer. If the weather was cold, he would find himself, at minimum, with his jacket on, but most of the time someone covered him with an old blanket, usually one of the local homeless people, and lit a trash can fire next to the car. If it was summer, the windows would be down and depending on how he passed out, pants on or off, he would always find all of his belongings, including cash and weapons, right where he had left them. In some strange way, they respected the old man for who he was and the things he had done, and they thought of him as one of their own. He never would acknowledge it, though. He would often berate the locals for doing their business, but they would move on to another location and leave him be. Steve called it the scum bag neighborhood watch. The old man laughed his ass off the first time he ever heard the term, but deep down he knew it was true.

He heard a thump in his trunk, and the lid slammed down. Steve slid into the passenger seat. The night was as hot as the day, and he had the engine running so the air-conditioning would give him some relief. "You want me to go with you?" The old man never looked over at him. "Nope … best you get on home, boy … you don't want no part of this collar." He looked on as Steve sat motionless. He grabbed the passenger door handle and pulled but didn't open the door. "You aren't looking to arrest this guy are you?" He knew the question was rhetorical. The old man didn't answer. "Well, old man, I think that's a helluva stupid idea you're planning. I would also be remiss if I didn't warn you not to take the law into your own hands. Remember that college that you say messed up my head? I followed your lead, and you taught me everything I know, so I have to go on the record here as a special agent and tell you not to do this." There was a pause and silence in the car as he continued. "I understand why you're doing it, but you're not going to come out on the success end of this one. I've spoken my piece. You do what you want to. I think you should leave this up to me and the Sheriff's Department. We'll catch him."

Not a move, not a comment, just a dead stare out the front windshield. Steve pushed the door the rest of the way open. "As far as I'm concerned, we never had this conversation." There was no response. He stepped out of the car then bent down and looked at the old man and said, "You know, I've got your back if you want it." The old man just nodded as he stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. He never looked over at Steve. "You can ignore me 'til the cows come home, old man, but you know as well as I do that if you go after The Iron Eagle alone he's going to kill you." He didn't respond, just motioned for him to close the car door. "I'll say my goodbyes to you now, and thank you for helping me become the man I am today." Mullin didn't respond; he just waved his hand and drove away. Steve got into his car and started to follow him at a distance. He knew the old man could pick up a tail with little effort, but he felt he needed to try. He lost sight of him, as he thought he would, as Mullin turned onto Elm Street.

Eleven thirty-two was the time on the clock in the old man's car when he parked outside Sumner Mill Works. It had been a wood manufacturing plant until the recession hit and the owners shut it down. At one point in the history of the plant, half the population of Boyle Heights had been employed there. Hell, he even worked there as a kid just before he was drafted in '69. He sat watching the locked gates. The area was quiet, and there was no activity. Mullin knew in those moments that he wasn't alone. He was out there, somewhere, watching.

Behind a wood pile, a pair of eyes with night vision goggles was watching the parked car. The black figure moved silently in the direction of the vehicle. The old man lit a cigarette and waited for movement, any movement, so he could take his revenge. He took a drag off the smoke and put his head back on the headrest – the red hot cherry tip of his smoke the only light in the car – when suddenly he heard the passenger side door handle being pulled. He reached for the gun on his right side, but he never got there as suddenly everything went black.

"You came to kill me," said a disembodied voice out of sight of the old man. His head was foggy, and the voice was being disguised. He tried to look around, but he felt sick. "Are you confused as to where you are?" He tried to move, but he was restrained to a chair. He bent his head forward and threw up. The fog in his head was lifting, and he could see a light in the corner of the room. He felt a hand on his back patting him like a child, and then he felt the restraints being removed from his wrists. He moved to stand up, only to fall on the concrete floor into his own vomit. He moved his feet, but he had leg irons on. He lay for several minutes on the cold floor. It felt good against his body – the smell of his own stomach contents of no concern in the moment. He was now almost fully alert and called out, "Where are you, you son-bitch?" His voice echoed off the walls of what appeared to be an empty room. The voice responded, "I'm right over here, Barry." He looked in the direction of the voice and saw the silhouette of a person in a doorway. From his vantage point he couldn't make out any details, just a fuzzy figure with a very bright light behind it.

"How the fuck do you know my name? No one calls me that." He saw the hulking figure dressed all in black head towards him, no discernible face with the light shining in the old man's eyes. "Now now, Barry. Is that any way to speak to an old friend? I suppose you would prefer that I call you 'old man,' right? If you ask me, it's just downright disrespectful for a man of your reputation." The voice kept moving around, and the old man couldn't figure out where it was coming from. "Your head is getting clearer, correct?" Mullin rolled onto his back and fought to sit up while yelling, "Fuck you, asshole! Where are you, mother fucker?" He felt a strong pair of hands grab him under his arms and start dragging him toward the door. He still couldn't see his captor, but he could feel his feet dragging on the smooth concrete floor toward the brightly lit doorway. He felt his body being lifted into the air and then gently laid down on a flat, soft surface. "Barry, Barry, please keep the profanity down. I'm a sensitive person. I would never speak to you in such a manner."

Mullin realized that he was lying on a bed, and he felt the hands as they gently tied each of his wrists to it. "You haven't answered my question, Barry. I asked if you came here to kill me." "You're goddamn right I'm here to kill you, you son-bitch." He felt the arms release him and watched as the figure walked to the end of the bed. There, in front of him, stood a man dressed all in hospital white. He was wearing a surgeon's hat and mask with a helmet on with a clear glass eye protector. "Nice disguise, asshole!" There was no response. He just stood there looking at him. He had no way of determining the height, weight or facial features of his captor. He had no idea how high off the floor the bed he was laying on was, and the voice was definitely disguised. "You said I know you, asshole. Who the fuck are you?" He saw the man move toward a table and pull open the bag that the old man had packed at his office. He began unpacking the contents and laying them on two small steel tables, weapons on one table, tools on another.

"Barry, were you really going to use these things on me?" He didn't respond. "Cat got your tongue, Barry? I asked you a question." The old man didn't say a thing. He could feel his heart beating quickly in his chest, and he was starting to have trouble breathing. "You know who I am, Barry, and if I didn't know better I would think from the contents of this bag that you were planning to drug and torture me." There was a bit of a laugh. "Tell me that I'm wrong." Mullin laid there for a few seconds and then said, "You killed my granddaughter, you son-bitch, and I'm gonna kill you." The man never turned; he just kept placing the tools on the tray, and once the bag had been emptied he placed it on a chair near the bed and rolled the table over next to him.

"I didn't know she was your granddaughter when I killed her, Barry. If I had known that at the time, I would never have separated the two of you. She was a bad girl, Barry, and she was trying to cover up for you. You are a very, very bad man, and you have been covering up an even bigger secret for a friend, haven't you?" "What the hell do you know?" the old man blurted out. "In all honesty, by a slip the three of you made. I know your friend's depraved, Barry, and I know where to find him. Want to tell me about it? I will make this quick and painless if you will give me more details." "Go fuck yourself. You don't know shit. There's no way you could know shit… I'm not telling you anything." "Have it your way. I suppose I should allow you some time to think over the things I have asked you about." The old man started to calm down a little. "You said I know you, but I don't recognize you or your voice." The man turned to face him and moved a bright light over him obstructing the view of his face. "You do know me; you know me well. You have been tracking me for several years. As I said, if I had known that Jill Makin was your granddaughter things would have been different; I do deeply apologize for the pain you must have endured. I certainly understand why you would want to kill me. It's way out of character for you though, Barry. You have always pretended to be a law abiding person; however, pretenses eventually come into the light, don't they? You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Ashamed my ass, you son-bitch. You let me go now, and I will spare you your life." The man reached behind the old man's head for something while responding, "Ah, you will let me live, but you would still deny me my freedom. I have to admit, Barry, I don't believe you. I'm quite certain that if the roles were reversed you would not be letting me go or even listening to any argument that I had in my defense." "You have no argument in your defense, asshole. You are a murdering son-bitch, and I came to stop you." "By murdering me?" He resisted the restraints and said, "I'd be doin' society a favor." He heard the sound of an electric motor behind his head, and he knew that it was the sound of a saw or a drill. "So you're apologizing to me for killing my granddaughter, and now you're going to kill me?" "Ironic, huh?" His heart began to beat fast again, and a sense of fear gripped him that he had never felt before. "Wait … we can work this out. Answer a question for me." He heard the clink of metal hitting metal on the table next to him. "Of course, Barry, anything." "Why did you kill my grandbaby?"

There was some rustling around, and he saw the man's hands come toward him with a pair of scissors, and he begin to cut his shirt open." "She was hardly a baby. She was a U.S. Marshal just like her grandfather, and she was getting a little too close for my comfort and my cause. She knew my true identity, and she knew that I knew what you'd been doing. She knew about the cover-up that you were assisting your friend with, but this is nothing new. You know all this." He pulled the shirt open and then cut open his undershirt. "I see you still like to wear those 'wife beaters.'" Barry started freaking out as the cold steel pressed against the skin of his chest. "Look … even if I know you, I will keep quiet, just let me go. I only know you as The Iron Eagle. I don't want to see your face. If I know you, I can tell you that you have done a great job of disguising your voice and your appearance. There's no way I could ever identify you based on what I've seen. So, if you do feel bad about my granddaughter, show your remorse and let me go." He felt something cold being slathered on his chest, and he began to scream.

"Barry, Barry … calm down, calm down. You don't think that I'm going to make you feel any pain, do you? You finally identified me by that nickname that has followed me for so many years – a nickname you and Jim O'Brian put on me in the beginning. At least Jim has had the decency to stay bound to his convictions. I bear him no ill will." The old man was surprised by that response. "No … you're not going to hurt me. You feel bad about my granddaughter and what you did to her. You're going to let me go … right?" He felt a prick and then a sting in his right arm and looked down to see that an IV had been put in. He kept talking as The Eagle injected something into the IV, and he started to feel numb. His head was clear, but he couldn't feel the restraints or the coldness of his chest or the room. The Eagle moved over to look in Barry's eyes, and he could see that he was feeling no pain, but he wanted to be certain.

"Barry … I need you to focus. Do you see this scalpel in my hand?" He nodded slowly. "I'm going to touch your skin. Tell me if it feels cold, okay?" The old man blurted out some obscenities, but he didn't feel anything. There were a few minutes of silence between the two, then the sound of the motor started, and he could feel pressure in his chest. Blood and bone fragments were striking him in his face. He couldn't scream; he was out of breath. The giant hands placed a steel cage over his chest, and he recognized the contraption from many an autopsy as a rib spreader … and it was being pressed into his chest. There were a few more moments of silence between the two men. The old man could feel pressure as if someone were pulling his chest apart, then The Eagle stood to the old man's side and said, "Barry, I want to show you something." He saw The Eagle's hands reach down into his chest and pull out a beating heart. At first, he was so amazed at what he saw that he didn't realize that the heart he was seeing was his own. He could actually see it beating faster and faster as his anxiety level rose. He felt no pain; he was in shock.

"Barry," The Eagle said in a calm voice. He looked in the direction of The Eagle's voice and at his face. He laid the heart on his chest in plain view and moved his hands toward his head. "Barry … I'm truly sorry for the pain I caused you. I hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me. You have caused a great deal of pain yourself, and you have gone to great pains to make sure that no one knows the truth about you and the others. I'm going to leave public perception of you alone. The truth will come out at some point." The Eagle lifted Mullin's heart to show it to him again. He continued, "I wish we could continue our dialogue, but I have a commitment I must keep, so I'm going to kill you now." He placed the heart on the old man's chest and then took off the helmet and mask that he had been wearing. The old man's eyes grew large. "It's you, son-bitch; it's you…you been fuckin' with all of us all along! How could you?" The Eagle threw the head gear on the floor and said, "I would have thought you'd have some more creative last words, but then, look who I'm talking to." And with a quick sweep, he clamped the old man's aorta shut, and the blood supply to the brain was cut off. He watched as the old man's pupils dilated, and in a matter of seconds without a word he was dead.

2

The buzz of his cell phone roused Steve from sleep. It was still dark outside, and he groped for the flashing phone. "Hoffman," his voice groggy and sounding like he had been in a deep sleep. His wife, Molly, roused in bed next to him but only for a moment. There were a few seconds of listening while lying back on his pillow in the dark, then he sat straight up in bed and turned on the nightstand light. "Okay. I'll be there as fast as I can." He jumped out of bed and threw on the clothes he had been wearing when he met the old man the night before. Molly sat up in bed as he moved around the room but never spoke. Within minutes he was pulling into the same parking lot he had pulled out of just a few short hours earlier at Legion Park. There was yellow crime scene tape in the distance. There were several locals who frequented the park still hanging around. It was four fifteen a.m. when he parked. He jumped out and walked up to one of the officers on crowd control, flashed his FBI ID and asked, "Where's Jim?" The cop pointed off in the direction of the crime scene tape which he could see was all around the old man's parked car. He walked toward the car, but he knew what he was going to see.

He saw Jim standing at the back of the car talking to one of his officers. Jim O'Brian was true to his Irish heritage; he was a fourth generation cop. Steve always joked with him because at 5'8" and 240 pounds Jim was a heart attack waiting to happen. He carried the bulk of the weight in his belly. Steve had tried for years to get him on a diet and exercise plan, but he would have nothing to do with it. His red hair and freckles looked like liver spots in the glow of the street lights. His uniform was, as usual, unkempt, and he had a cigarette in his hand as Steve approached.

"We have a hell of a mess here, Steve." Jim had been a detective in the homicide division of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for 20 years. He and the old man had been very close friends. They were in the marshal's office together until Jim was shot arresting a fugitive and had to retire from the force. He had to convalesce for almost a year after which he joined the LA County Sheriff's Department. He liked dealing with homicides; it kept him on the streets and in a controlled environment. He was also a master at puzzles, and he looked at each crime scene as a puzzle that he needed to put together to catch the killer. Steve took a look around; outside of the crime scene tape, there was little out of the ordinary.

"Who found him?" "Good question. Dispatch received a 911 call about a half hour ago that there was a body in the park. We sent a unit out to take a look around, and they found the old man's car and him inside." He looked around at the few people who were not police. "Did anyone see anything?" Jim grabbed an extra pair of blue latex gloves and handed them to Steve. "Not so far. We've talked to everyone who was here when the first patrol came in, and they all said the car was just sitting there. No one thought there was anything out of the ordinary. Hell, Steve, if we hadn't gotten the 911 call we probably wouldn't have known about it until morning. Even my deputies don't bother with his car if they see it here 'cuz he's here so much." Steve nodded and put on the gloves. The two men walked over to the car. The driver side door was open, and he could see the old man sitting in the front seat with something on his chest. He asked for a flashlight, and when he shined it on the old man, he just shook his head.

"What?" asked Jim. "I saw him yesterday afternoon and then again here in the park about nine p.m. last night. "What did he say when you saw him?" He looked at the old man's body in the car. His chest was open, and his heart was resting between his open chest and the steering wheel. "Shit Jim … he was half drunk and in a mood. He said that he had picked up a tip on where to find The Eagle." Jim shook his head. "I don't know of any LAPD messages about The Iron Eagle. There haven't been any killings attributed to him since that U.S. Marshal … What was her name?" Steve interrupted, "Jill Makin." Jim laughed. "Shit. I can never remember her name. That's the last killing that we have connected to that case. This case has none of the hallmarks of that killer. What made you bring it up?" Jim shuffled his feet in the dirt and sand next to the car. "You didn't know Makin. She was his granddaughter." "WHAT? We never had any connection between Barry and the victim."

Steve walked back over to the car and took a closer look with the flashlight. Nothing that he saw had any of the earmarks of The Iron Eagle. He called out to Jim and asked, "What do you think the cause of death was?" He walked back to the car, looking in over Steve's shoulder with the light shining on Barry's body. "Well, I'm no medical examiner, but I would say the cause of death was having his heart ripped out of his chest. That seems to me like a surefire way to die. What do you think?" Steve wasn't amused. "Okay, smart ass. Are you done with the jokes? Can we do a little police work, or do you need to work out your standup routine for the coroner?" Jim apologized, and the two men examined the body more closely.

Jim grabbed a midi recorder from his pocket and began to make notes of the crime scene. Just as he started speaking, the crime scene photographer showed up and started snapping pictures. Steve whirled around and snapped at him. "Get the fuck out of here. We're trying to process a crime scene." The photographer snapped back, "What the fuck do you think I'm trying to do? A Victoria's Secret layout?" Steve got his composure and said, "Give us a few minutes, okay?" The photographer backed off, and Steve turned back to the car. The two men studied the body. They knew they couldn't touch it until the coroner was on scene, so they had to do the best they could with their eyes. Jim noted that there was some kind of steel clip on the old man's chest. Steve looked in closer and knew right away what it was. "You're right on the money, man, only it's not just a clip; it's a surgical clamp, and it's on his aorta." They looked at each other and then said what they were thinking simultaneously, "Pre or post-mortem?" Steve looked at the wound and the clip then pulled his head out of the car. "If I had to venture a guess, premortem. The old man was alive when he was cut open."

Jim pulled out of the car as well and said, "The son of a bitch cut his heart out while he was alive? Jesus Christ … this is a new one for me. This is not the work of The Iron Eagle." Steve walked to the rear of the car and sat down on a parking block. Jim followed and sat beside him. "Have you put a call in to your team yet?" Jim asked. Steve just sat for a few minutes not saying a word, trying to gather his thoughts. A few moments later he said, "No. I got your call and came right over. You were too cryptic in your message. When you told me your guys found the old man's car here in the park I figured he passed out or something." Jim pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and taped the top until one fell into his palm. He lit it and took a couple of hits. "Well, it's my jurisdiction for now unless you think it's The Eagle, then you should send in the forensic team from your local field office." Steve pulled his cell phone from his hip and hit speed dial.

"This is Special Agent Hoffman, ID 556554A. I need you to send my team to Legion Park; we have a homicide." Jim looked down at the ground; the sun was starting to rise, and there was a faint glow on the asphalt at his feet. The coroner's van pulled up, and he was about to go meet with them when he said, "Steve, I know you two were close. You've called your team, so you obviously think this is the work of The Eagle. Are you taking over my investigation?" He stood up as did Jim and said, "No … let's work this one with mutual cooperation. If this was the work of The Eagle, this takes things into a whole new realm. I think it's best that we stay together on this. Agreed?" He reached out his hand to Jim who shook it and walked over to the coroner's van. He called out to all of his people as Steve's FBI vans were pulling into the park.

"Okay people, here's the deal. This is going to be a joint department investigation; we will be taking the lead, and all information on the investigation will be relayed to the FBI through Special Agent Hoffman and his team. We all know each other, so let's be good boys and girls and see if we can find the person who killed our friend Barry. I know you all knew him as the old man, but he's gone and we need to work with his name. As you all also know, Steve and Barry were very close, so let's show a little sensitivity in the handling of this matter. Let's go people. There's a killer out there, and we're going to find him." Steve walked over to the first van and spoke to his team leader and explained the situation. Everyone went to work processing the scene. Steve went back to his house to shower and dress for the day which he knew was going to be a long one.

3

Every street has its secrets. Lives lived undercover, that neighbor who's just a bit off. The one who doesn't talk to people or, just the opposite, seems to be in everyone's business and is a neighborhood leader or gossip. The person who grew up in the area. Everyone knows him or her, or so they think. Elk Drive is like any ordinary street in West Covina, California: streets lined with hundred-year-old oaks, manicured lawns, and friendly neighbors who look out for one another. Stew Roskowski is the kind of neighbor anyone would want to have. He has lived in the upper middle class neighborhood for three decades. He's the principal at the local middle school and is a pillar of the community. He does fundraisers for his school, runs several after-school programs for his students, and often throws pool parties and other celebrations at his home for his students and their parents during the school year. One of the things he is best known for is his summer block party. The neighborhood blocks off the street on the first day of summer break, and there's a big celebration for those students moving on to high school, as well as those students who've worked hard all year. Stew's known for his dedication to his students and for running one of the finest schools in the San Gabriel Valley. He received the mayor's citation as a community leader the previous winter, and he's also well respected in academic circles for the way he turned the school around when he took it over five years earlier. Prior to that, it was an underperforming, dilapidated school with poor attendance and was fraught with gang and drug problems. However, when Stew took over, things changed in a hurry, and over the five years since he became principal, the school became a poster campus for others in the county and the country to emulate.

Stew always looked forward to this time of year, but this year was different. There was a heaviness in the air. One of their beloved eighth graders went missing two weeks before the end of the school year. There were posters all over the area, and the police and other local law enforcement had been scouring the area looking for any clues to her disappearance. Stew stood before the neighborhood on a small platform where a band had been set up and asked for quiet from the crowed. The stage was built in the middle of the street right in front of his house. He held a microphone close to his mouth and asked for a moment of silence for Cheryl Pruitt, one of his students, and prayed for her quick return to her family who was present in the crowd. He spoke of his time with her and what a wonderful student she was and asked that anyone with information on her disappearance please contact local law enforcement. Her parents were teary-eyed as he made a plea to the person or persons who took Cheryl, asking only for her safe return.

He said, "I know that this is a bittersweet party this year. The Pruitt family will be holding a candlelight vigil for Cheryl tonight at First Trinity Church on Palmer Avenue. Please come and show your support for Cheryl and her family. And, please, please, if you know anything about her disappearance, contact law enforcement right away. We want Cheryl back safely with her family and with her school family."

He held up a poster and pointed to a table where people could pick up information and posters. He encouraged people to post them everywhere they could. He invited Cheryl's father to come up and make a public plea for her safe return. The local media was there, and they walked amongst the party goers doing interviews and getting information on what Cheryl was wearing along with her description for their nightly news broadcast. Stew took back the microphone from her grief-stricken father and said, "Cheryl is five feet, two inches tall with green eyes and long blond hair. She was last seen wearing a pink blouse with blue jeans and white tennis shoes. She has an infectious laugh and a wonderful smile. So please help us bring her home safely." The festivities finished up about five p.m., and Stew helped the rest of the neighborhood to clean up and put their street back in working order. He then bid farewell to his neighbors and went home to clean up before joining the vigil at nine that night.

He walked up the manicured entry to his colonial style home, waving at his neighbor who had just returned home from work. He unlocked the door and walked into the kitchen to put some things away that he had brought to the party. He was just setting down a dish in the sink when he heard a rustling noise coming from one of the back bedrooms. There, on a small double bed, lay Cheryl Pruitt, nude and tied at the wrists and ankles to the bed frame. She was gagged, and her face was streaked with tears of fear, pain, and sadness. "What the hell is going on in here, young lady?" he asked while walking over to the bed and checking her restraints to make sure they were intact. "What did you do?" He looked around the room to see if there was anything out of place. All of his sex toys were where they belonged; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He picked up a small whip and walked over to the bed and struck the child on the torso. "You behave yourself. Did you enjoy my speech and hearing your daddy asking for you to come home safe?" The little girl had already been crying; the pain of the whip only exacerbated it. Now she was in hysterics. Stew just laughed and threw a blanket over her lower half and said, "You should be ashamed being undressed and uncovered like that. You deserve to be punished. I will deal with you in a few minutes." He walked out of the room smiling and humming as he went back to the kitchen.

The house had been built back in the 1930's and was one of the few homes in the area that had a basement. He walked through the kitchen to an old painted green door that led to the basement. He turned on the light and walked down into the musty cold room. In the corner of the basement were five cages used for keeping dogs, only instead of dogs three of the five cages had young girls in them. All were malnourished and nude, bruised, and cold based on the fetal position they were all in. "Hello, my pets," he said with a smile and a friendly voice. They made no sound. He walked over to a set of cabinets and pulled a box off one of the shelves. It was full of photographs of him and young girls. There were hundreds. He looked at several of them and as he did he became aroused. He knew he didn't have time to act out his arousal on Cheryl right then; he had to shower and dress for her vigil. He took three photographs with him when he went back upstairs. He spoke both to himself and the caged children, "I will feed you pets when I return home." He smiled and walked over to the cages and poked one of the girls with his finger. She jumped, and he let out a laugh. "Then I will introduce you all to my newest pet. We are going to have so much fun."

He went back upstairs to the master bath, disrobed, and walked into the shower. He had pinned the photographs of him raping a young girl to the back shower wall so they wouldn't get wet. He stepped into the shower and slathered petroleum jelly on his penis and began to masturbate, all the while staring and smiling at the pictures. The semen shot out of his cock with ferocity as he looked at the photograph of Cheryl Pruitt screaming in agony impaled on his cock, his arms holding her on top of him facing away from him in the direction of the camera. "Oh, how I can't wait for the opportunity to do the same to your asshole, little Cheryl, my little beauty," he whispered to himself as the aching in his groin ceased. He then soaped up and finished his bathing.

He had just shut off the water and was starting to shave when he heard the sound of something heavy fall in one of the rooms. He walked toward the room where Cheryl was when he heard the sound again. It was coming from her room. He opened the hall closet and pulled out a piece of barbed wire. "If she thinks she's going to cause a commotion before her vigil she has another thing coming," he muttered as he opened the bedroom door. Sure enough she wasn't on the bed. "Oh God, she's escaped. I'll be ruined." The room was very small. There were only two places she could hide: under the bed or in the bedroom closet. The bedroom door was locked with a double-sided keyed deadbolt; there was no way she could exit that way, and the windows were barred. He looked under the bed, but she wasn't there. "Cheryl," he called out softly. "If you come out of the closet now, I will not punish you for misbehaving." He held the barbed wire high over his head, ready to strike the child the second she came out of the closet. The door knob turned, and the closet door opened a crack. He moved closer until his face was almost against the door. His flabby, fat, nude frame was ready to press against the door in the hopes of pinning her, so he could beat her soundly with the wire, but there was no further movement.

He was getting angry and knew he had to get to the vigil or people might think something was up. He didn't have the patience, and he said as he grabbed the door knob, "You brought this on yourself." He flung the door open and moved with a sweep of the wire downward. The wire didn't hit anything inside but imbedded itself into his thigh causing him to scream. He fell back onto the floor, trying to pull the barbed wire out of his flesh, when suddenly a tall, powerful figure dressed all in black stepped out of the closet and grabbed him by the throat. He picked Stew up with one hand, all two hundred and fifty pounds of him, and threw him across the bedroom, his body hitting the wall and knocking him unconscious above the bed where Cheryl had been restrained.

"911. What is your emergency?" There was no sound on the other end of the line. The dispatcher asked again, but there was still no reply. She kept the line open and could see from her reverse directory the address of the caller. The address on Elks Drive was flashing on her screen, and she kept trying to speak to whoever was on the other end of the line. She suddenly heard deep breathing as if someone was asleep but no other noise. The dispatcher looked at her call log and saw that unit 57 was the closest patrol in the neighborhood. "Unit 57. This is Dispatch. We have a 911 in your area. Over." "This is 57. Send us the address, and we'll run. What's the situation? Over." "57, I have a caller on the line, nonresponsive to dialogue, not sure if they're down or what, but there is someone on the line. Over." "Roger that, Dispatch. We have the address and are en route. Over."

She held the line as she waited for a response from the dispatched unit. She heard knocking on the door of the house and the calls of the officers through the open phone line. "This is the police. Open up." "Dispatch, it looks like a faked 911 here. There's an alarm company sticker in the front window and a sign in the yard. Looks like a crank call. Over." The dispatcher responded, "Roger. I don't think so, 57. I can hear heavy breathing on the other end of the line. Over." "Unit 57 here. The door is locked. You want to call the alarm company and see if the homeowners are in town? This could be someone 'SWATTING' the homeowner. Over." At that moment, she could hear the voice of the officer's partner coming toward him saying that he had been around the whole house, and there was a broken lower window going into what looked like a basement. "Dispatch, it looks like we have forced entry. Send backup. Over." "Roger 57. Backup is en route. Over." "Roger that. We're going to force entry. Over." The dispatcher could hear the sound of glass breaking and the thud of the officer's bodies against the front door of the home. It seemed to the dispatcher like an hour of silence when there was a call back. "Dispatch. We need an ambulance and fire to this location. Over." The dispatcher sent out the distress call. She held the line a few more moments waiting to be cleared to hang up. "Dispatch. Backup is on scene, and we can hear the ambulance. We are going to need two more ambulances stat. Over." "Roger 57. Units are en route. What's the situation? Over." There was a lot of commotion in the background before the officer radioed back. "Well, Dispatch, we have found four young girls. One of them appears to be the missing Pruitt girl. We can't confirm that yet. Over." "Copy that, 57. I'm patching you over to command. Good work. Over." "Good work to you, Dispatch. Can you get me the name of the owner of this property?" "Roger 57. The owner is Mr. Stewart Roskowski. Over." "Roger that. It looks like we broke up a kidnapping. Send in a detective unit. Over." "Roger that, 57. Is the homeowner on the premises? Over." "That's a negative, Dispatch. Over." "Roger. Patching you through. Over."

Jim's unit was sent in from LA County to investigate with West Covina PD. When he arrived on scene, he asked where the homicide was but no one had an answer. He was told that four young girls had been found alive, between eight and fourteen; three had been in cages in the basement; the fourth was, indeed, Cheryl Pruitt, who told the police that she was rescued by a man who hid her behind him in the closet of the home. Jim walked up to speak to the first two officers on scene and asked why homicide had been called in. They both shrugged their shoulders. "So let me get this straight. You two have your guns and badges, and you're cops. Jesus Christ! I just drove all the way from downtown. I'm a homicide detective not a missing person locater. Now someone better give me a good goddamn reason why I'm here!" He scowled as one of the West Covina PD detectives emerged from the house sheet white. Jim recognized him and called out, "Tony. What the fuck is going on? Do you have a homicide here, or are you stiffs busting my balls?" Tony only nodded. Jim talked to the first two officers on scene, and they explained that they found the missing Pruitt girl. They didn't know much else. Jim asked where the girl was, and they pointed to an ambulance with the back doors open. He walked over to the unit where the little girl was. She was sitting in an ambulance awaiting transport when he went over to speak to her. She was wrapped in a blanket, and the paramedics were setting an IV as she sat shivering.

"Cheryl, my name is Detective O'Brian, sweetheart." She jolted from the prick of the IV needle. "It's okay, honey; you're safe. The paramedics are going to take you to the hospital. We've called your mom and dad; you will be together soon." She started to cry. "I need to ask you some quick questions. Can you understand me?" She nodded. "How did you get to Mr. Roskowski's house?" She was shaking badly but he needed to get what he could from her now. The paramedics gave her five milligrams of Valium to relax her, and she started to calm down. "Did you hear what I asked you, Cheryl?" She nodded. "Can you tell me?" "Mr. Roskowski invited me to his house after finals." Jim held his midi recorder to take her statement. "Did Mr. Roskowski bring you to his house from school?" She shook her head. "Then how did you get to his house?" She told him that he asked her to walk to a grocery store about a mile from school. He had some errands to run, and he would meet her there. She said that when she got there she saw the front of his car behind the store, so she walked back to see if he was there. "When you got to the back of the store was he there?" She shook her head. "Do you know where he was?" She shook her head again. "Do you remember how you got to his house?" Once more, she shook her head and started to slip off to sleep.

Jim put his hand on her head and asked, "Did Mr. Roskowski do bad things to you here in his house?" She was starting to fall asleep as she replied, "I woke up, and I was in a room on a bed. Mr. Roskowski came in and told me to take off my clothes. I told him no, and he hit me with a long stick. I begged him not to hit me. I begged him, but he hit me again, so I took off my clothes. Then he took off his clothes and started taking pictures of me. I did all he asked, so he wouldn't hit me anymore, but he wouldn't stop." Jim could see the trauma in her face. Her eyes were red, and she was bruised on her face and arms. "One last question, Cheryl. Did Mr. Roskowski touch you?" She was almost asleep but whispered to Jim as she was going out, "He put things inside me. He put his penis inside me. He hurt me, he hurt me … screaming, I was screaming." The Valium finally lulled her to sleep, and Jim turned off the recorder. He softly told her, "It's over, Cheryl; you're safe. It's going to be okay," and he stepped out of the ambulance.

Once the ambulance was out of sight, he went back into the house. "How are the other three girls?" "They're a mess, Jim. Someone hurt them really, really bad." "Sexual assault?" The young female detective he was speaking to from the WCPD was really shook up. "I need you to focus. Are the first arriving officers still here?" She pointed to two officers standing off to the side near the front door. One was tall, thin, and looked to be in his early forties. The other, five foot eight and a more muscular build and also much younger. Jim walked over to them as they were getting ready to clear the call and get back on patrol. "Other than the girls, was there anyone else in the house?" The tall officer responded, "Yes. A body. We received a dispatch from a 911 operator. At first I thought it was a false alarm, then my partner came back from canvassing the house and found signs of forced entry. So we called for backup and made entry." "Is that when you found the girls?" "No … we started to search the house, and we found the first girl in a back bedroom on the floor. I recognized her right away as the missing Pruitt girl." "What about the other girls?" "My partner started through the house. He heard screaming, but he couldn't tell where it was coming from. When backup arrived, they started to search the residence and found a basement. When they entered, they found the other three girls, nude and locked in dog kennels." "And the dead body?" "There was a horrible smell. I recognized it immediately as the smell of death, but we had not cleared the house at that point. The body was discovered by backup." "Any sign of the homeowner?" "Negative. We searched after we had the girls and the house secured but no sign." "Do you know if anything else was found?" He nodded, "Yea … go to the basement. It will answer all of your questions." "Did you know who the homeowner was when you were first called on scene?" "No … but Dispatch gave me the information once we had made entry. It's Stewart Roskowski, the principal at Coston Middle School." Jim nodded and walked back into the house.

The neighborhood was abuzz with news and police choppers. There were neighbors milling around and none of them knew what was going on. He could hear people asking questions, but there were no answers. He walked back into the house and grabbed a pair of blue latex gloves and started to look around. He heard a voice call up to him from the basement. "Detective, you need to see this." He walked down the stairs, and one of his deputies was standing over a box of nude photos of children." "Looks like we got ourselves a real pervert here." Jim nodded. The basement was now well lit, and he could see the kennels where the girls had been kept. He looked around more and saw several more boxes of photos. There was a strange mix of old and new photographic technology. Everything from old black and whites to Polaroids and other types of film and more modern digital photographs. A yellow tarp covered the body, and he could see that the figure was small. He walked to the back of the basement and leaned against the wall, and when he did the wall gave way. He pushed on it a little more and called out to two of his people to come over to try and help him open the door, but it was somehow locked.

He called out to the firemen who were still on scene, and they were able to use pry bars to open the makeshift door. No one was prepared for what they would find on the other side.

4

Stew Roskowski woke up in a dark room. His head was throbbing, and he had no idea where he was or how he got there. He was dizzy; he tried to move his arms, but they were restrained to his sides. He was cold, extremely cold, like a thousand knives were being driven into his flesh. His head was still foggy when a slit of light hit his eyes, and a tall muscular man entered the room. He was groggy but not groggy enough not to ask where he was. The Eagle moved out of his line of sight and came back with a large five gallon bucket in his hands and poured the contents all over him. It was ice water, and for the first time he realized why he was so cold – he was nude, and he was drenched in water and ice. He was lying on a steel table which was conducting the cold through his body like electricity. His teeth were chattering as he asked, "Who are you…why are you doing this to me?" The Eagle said nothing but reappeared with another bucket and poured it over his head, chest, and genitals. He cried out from the pain of the ice water; it felt like fire.

"You're awake now, aren't you Stew?" The voice wasn't familiar to him. "Yes! … Yes! Please, no more." The Eagle walked out of sight again and came back with another bucket and placed it in front of the steel table. "Are you pleading for mercy, Stew?" "Oh God, yes. Mercy, please, mercy." The Eagle picked up the bucket and spoke as he poured the water over Stew's body. "What's God got to do with it? Where was your mercy when those children begged it from you?" Stew started crying uncontrollably. "Please … please, I beg you. Please don't kill me." The Eagle stepped back into the light, but Stew couldn't see his face. "Really Stew? You're kidding, right?" "I'll do anything. I will confess to everything. I'm so sorry for the things that I've done. I'm sick. I have a mental illness. That's what the doctors have told me. It's a compulsion that I can't control. I will make a full confession to the police. Take me in. I'm ready to pay for my crimes."

The Eagle pulled a chair out of the darkness and sat down. "You are correct, Stew. You are going to make a full and complete confession. You are also correct that you deserve to pay for your crimes." Weeping and weeping, he responded, "I was very bad to my pets. I should have treated them better." The Eagle sat back in his chair. "Your pets? Stew, you have a warped sense of reality. You didn't have pets. You abducted, raped, tortured, and then murdered young girls. They weren't pets; they were human beings just like you…well, not just like you; you are a savage animal." Stew didn't know what to say. He was so cold that he was starting to black out. "Stew…oh…Stew…I can't have you falling asleep. I need your full attention. You and I are going to relive some of your greatest hits…if you know what I mean." Stew started screaming as light flooded the room and his eyes adjusted. He could see all of the instruments of torture that he had used on his victims. He felt the table start to move toward the light, and he screamed all the way through the door. It crashed closed on Stewart's screams with a hollow steel sound.

Jim had put a call into Steve because he knew that he would need him and his resources on this case. Steve pulled up with his investigators in a van behind him. He walked up to Jim and shook his hand. "So what do you have here that would concern the FBI?" "The Iron Eagle." Steve's face showed no reaction. "Are you saying that you think that this is the home of The Iron Eagle?" Jim shook his head. "Then what?" Jim started for the front door, and Steve followed. They walked into the bedroom where Cheryl had been held. Steve looked around and at first nothing seemed of any real interest; then he saw it. He walked over to the wall behind the bed where it appeared a large object had struck, leaving a huge break in the plaster. He took a pair of gloves and tweezers and pulled off a piece of black material and placed it in a plastic bag. There was blood on the wall, and it had pooled in a small amount on the mattress below. "Which girl was in this room?" "Pruitt." "Was she bleeding?" "Nope!" On closer examination he saw that the blood had been drawn with a pen like object from the pool across the mattress. A pair of wings were painted on the pillow in blood. At first glance it looked like a Rorschach ink blot, but on further review it was the deliberate calling card of The Eagle. "He took Roskowski?" "It sure as hell looks that way," Jim said as he walked out of the bedroom and toward the bathroom where Roskowski had been showering.

He pulled back the shower curtain and pointed to the photographs on the wall. Steve looked hard at the three pictures before asking Jim who the girl was. "That's the Pruitt girl. I spoke to her in the ambulance when they were taking her to the hospital. She told me that he had done this to her, but here she is, her contorted face and his cock in her pussy." Steve shook his head. "Do you always have to be so damn vulgar?" "Hey, I call them like I see them, and I see a sick pedophile with his cock in a fourteen-year-old girl. Now that's vulgar." Jim turned and started toward the basement. When the two men made it to the hidden room, Steve knew that Mr. Roskowski was in the hands of The Eagle. "How many bodies have you found?" "We've recovered four alive and at least fifteen dead so far. The coroner is working with us, but this is turning into an archeological dig."

"So The Eagle has Roskowski. Innocent," Jim asked, "until proven guilty?" "No…I feel a confession coming." Steve walked out to his car. Jim was behind him, and he couldn't help himself, "So we know we'll get a confession…but most likely posthumously." Jim lit a cigarette as Steve opened the door to his car. "I have to admit I feel no urgency in finding Roskowski. It's in my jurisdiction, and my team will work it up," said Steve as he called for his crime scene investigators to come to the house. "I want to be updated on everything that you find here. I'm also going to have my team pull a comprehensive background check on Roskowski. I have a feeling that what you found in there is only the tip of the iceberg." Jim nodded, smoke from his cigarette blowing out his nose as he waved Steve off and walked back to the house. "Hey…you better stop smoking those things; they're going to kill you," Steve yelled. "I have a feeling that the job will get me long before the smokes do."

When Jim got back into the house he saw the lead CSI walking out from behind the false wall in the basement. "Well, what are we dealing with?" He had known Jade Morgan for ten years, and she looked horrible. She was a hardened CSI. He could see, however, that this scene had gotten to her. She walked toward the back door without saying a word as he followed. When they reached the back stairs she began to vomit, and he reached out to grab her. "What the hell's going on, Jade? Did you come to work sick?" She wiped the sweat from her face. She was flushed, and if he didn't know better he might've thought she had the flu. She pulled her shoulders back to get some air. "I've never seen anything like what's in that house." "Come on, Jade; you've seen your fair share of crime scenes." "You haven't been back inside in the last hour, have you?" He shook his head. "Go in there and then come back and tell me it's just another crime scene." He was startled by the seriousness of her tone. He stood up, and, without saying a word, walked back into the house and down the stairs into the basement.

Plastic had been put up around the opening of the door to the hidden room. He could see that Jade's team now wore full hazmat suits. He pulled back the plastic, stepped into the room, and the smell alone made him gag. What he saw next was like nothing he had ever seen in all of his years in homicide. The room which once was about the size of a one hundred square foot closet had three separate doorways each draped with plastic. As he entered the nearest, he looked into the now well-lit rooms. His olfactory senses were assaulted by the stench of death, then he could see what he could only equate to the catacombs he had seen in Europe years earlier. Burial chambers stacked with bodies in varying degrees of decomposition. Some were just bones, others were recognizable, and all of them were children. The combination of smell and sight assaulted his senses. He became violently ill, running up the stairs and barely making it to the back door before vomiting on Jade, still sitting on the steps.

She didn't move; he didn't know what to say. They both just stared at each other until Jade got up and grabbed a hose and began to wash his vomit off her smock. Jim walked out into the yard and collapsed in the grass. Jade walked over toward him but didn't completely approach. "I saw three separate rooms off the initial room that we found," he said. "Are the contents the same as the first?" She knelt down on the ground behind him. "There is one other burial chamber, and the third is…" she paused, "what I can only describe as a medieval torture chamber." "Is there anyone in there?" Jim couldn't see her, but he could hear her breathing. "Yes." "Is there anyone alive in there?" There was a long pause. "He brought his victims in there alive, and based on my quick review of the contents of the room, he worked very hard to keep them that way while he did the unspeakable to them." Jade paused then asked, "Do we know anything about the homeowner?" "Yea…he's the principal at one of the best schools in the area."

He heard her stand up, and he did the same. She looked at him and said, "Well, these children didn't come from his school I can tell you that. It looks like he's been collecting these kids for a very, very long time. He has become very, very good at what he does." Jim turned to look her in the eye. "He may have been doing this for a long time, but someone else found out before law enforcement." She had a confused look on her face. "I don't understand." "There was a 911 call made from the house that led police to find the missing girl and then accidently the three others that are now in the hospital." She had a thoughtful look on her face, "Was it the girl who called 911?" "I was only able to interview her for a few minutes before they took her to the hospital, but from what I gathered from her she didn't make the call. She told the first officers on scene that someone else was in the house, and that he saved her and protected her from her assailant before the police arrived. You haven't processed the rest of the house yet have you?" She shook her head. He started walking toward the house and said, "Follow me."

She did as he asked and followed him to the bedroom where Cheryl had been held. He pointed to the bed in the corner of the room. It now had crime scene markers all around it, and there were a few FBI agents mulling around. She walked over to the bed and looked down at the pillow where a large yellow marker sat. A sad look fell upon her face. "The Eagle," she said softly. He nodded. "Is this the girl's blood?" He shook his head; she called to one of her team members to get into the room. "Get a sample of this blood over to the lab stat. Have them type, cross, and rush a DNA analysis. Have we harvested the scene for DNA?" The tech just gave her a glazed look. "Jade, we've been digging in a basement for the past several hours. There was no sign of a homicide up here." She ordered him back to the basement, grabbed a crime scene kit from one of the cases, and started carefully bagging things from the home. She started in the bathroom and worked her way to the kitchen. When she was finished, she handed the bags to one of her associates. "If this ends up in court, I want this scene processed by the book. Start a chain of custody report for all DNA evidence. I don't want questions on who had what down the road. And get them to the lab right away."

Jim had been watching her on the periphery as he scoured the scene for other evidence. After Jade had sent off the specimens, she asked if Roskowski was in custody. He shook his head. "Well, are you planning on getting him into custody?" He sat down on a chair in front of a table in the kitchen. "Would love to do it, Jade, but Mr. Roskowski is missing." "The Eagle." "Are you asking me or telling me?" She sat up straight. "This is not the work of The Eagle; it doesn't fit his profile." He nodded. "But The Eagle was here?" He nodded again. Her face got a strange look on it, one he didn't know how to read. "The Eagle took Roskowski?" "That's the way it looks, Jade. Steve and his team are working on The Eagle aspect of this case; we need to focus on processing this crime scene and trying to figure out just how many kids are in that basement. And who they are." She put her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. "Shit, Jim…the son of a bitch is going to kill Roskowski before we can get any answers out of him as to whom he has in this house." He stood up and tidied his suit coat. "You're right and wrong. If The Eagle follows his previous M.O., he will kill Roskowski…however, he will also get a detailed confession out of him before he does." She stood up as well. "That's not his fucking job! It's your job. This animal needs to face justice." "Which animal are you referring to, Jade?" She started down the stairs to the basement, yelling "both of them" back at him.

It took Jim's team, as well as the others, two weeks to process the house and the property. When all was said and done, a total of sixty-three bodies were found and were being processed by the coroner. In Jade's preliminary report, she stated that it would very likely be impossible to identify most, if not all, of the remains. Jim and Steve had put out an APB for Roskowski; however, even with the tools at their disposal neither the FBI nor the LA County Sheriff had been able to locate him. He had vanished into thin air, or, as Jim told Steve in one of their conversations, "Into the talons of The Iron Eagle."

5

"STEWART!" His eyes fluttered open and then closed again. He felt a cold sensation in the vein of his right arm. "STEWART," the voice called again, only this time he heard it loud and clear, and his eyes shot open. The man standing next to him was dressed in a pair of jeans and a red polo shirt; he was very tall. Stewart didn't recognize his face. His features were chiseled, strong, very Nordic with piercing blue eyes and blond hair cut in a flat top and shaved on the sides. His arms were huge, and Stewart could see the blood vessels popping out from his biceps and forearms. "I see you're a body builder, so you know that the body is a temple!" His eyes were open, but he was far from aware of where he was or what was going on. He tried to move, but his arms and legs were too heavy to move. He turned his head and asked, "Who are you?" The Eagle sat down next to him. "Justice." He just stared into Stewart's face; his eyes devoid of emotion. "How long have I been out?" "Long enough for me to learn the true depths of your depravity." Stewart didn't respond. "Well," he continued, "we have some work to do." Stewart was still muddled in his head, "Oh, yes. I need to get to the school and attend to the children. I also need to feed my pets." He felt a sharp blow on the side of his face. The strike came with such force that it knocked out two of his teeth. "No … Stewart … you are never going back to the school … and you are never going to hurt another child. What you are going to do is tell me the names of the sixty-three children found in your basement and buried in your backyard. You are going to give me every name, gender, and age, and you are going to give them to me in chronological order."

Stewart could see a clear tube connecting an IV bag to his arm. He tried to pretend to nod off but felt another cold flush in his veins and was suddenly very alert and eager to talk. "What are you giving me? That stuff is really good!" "It's a medication to help you remember. Do you remember begging for your life the night I took you from your home?" He was quiet for a moment. "Yes … you're going to spare my life. Where are the police? I will tell them everything." The Eagle took a small black microphone and hooked it onto a sheet covering Stewart's body. Suddenly, Stewart heard the sound of an electric motor, and his head began to rise on the table. As he rose, he could see a camera and lights in front of him. There were several flat screen television monitors in different locations around him. One was right next to the camera, and he could see the full length of his body and the sheet covering him.

"Think of yourself as a celebrity, Stewart. You're going to tell the world your story." "What story?" "The story of the 'Catacomb Killer.' That's what they're calling you in the media. Your name has been in the headlines of every newspaper and news report since I took you." "Who is the Catacomb Killer?" "You are, Stewart. Pay attention when I speak to you." He showed him the front page of the Los Angeles Times. The page had a photograph of Roskowski with the banner headline: 'Catacomb Killer Sought After Gruesome Discovery in West Covina Neighborhood.' Stewart stared at the headline for a few seconds and then looked over at his captor. "You're going to kill me, aren't you?" "You're getting ahead of yourself, Stewart. That all depends on how cooperative you are." "I'll talk. I'll talk; just don't hurt me." The Eagle didn't say a word. He pointed the remote at the camera, and Stewart's face was on all the screens.

Over the next four days, The Eagle tortured and interviewed Roskowski until he had gathered the last details about his final four victims. "Wow," said The Eagle when he had gotten through the final interview. "That was a hell of a confession. You did good, Stew." Then he untied Stewart's right hand and gave him a pen. "Sign your name on the bottom of your confession." Stewart did as he was directed then handed the pen back to The Eagle. "So, do I get to go to the police now?" "No, Stew, I'm afraid not. There's no sense in wasting the time of law enforcement as well as the courts. Why should the taxpayers have to pay to house you and make you comfortable in a prison somewhere? Think about the families and parents of your victims. Do you think they should have to relive the horrific things that you did to their children?" There was silence. "You see my point don't you, Stew? It's just so unsavory, and we both know that you will grandstand in order to enjoy the suffering of your victims again in the faces of their families. No, you won't plead out. You would want a trial and the opportunity to relive what you did to each of those children. You and I know that you have a very, very good memory, and you remember every one of your victims in great detail. You would plead insanity, which would go back and forth for months, until you'd be found competent to stand trial where you'd be found guilty. Then, as if it that wasn't torture enough for the families of your victims, the penalty phase would let you relive your sick perverted fantasies once more. It's just not right." The Eagle watched as the sheet covering Roskowski rose near his penis as he listened to The Eagle's words. "Even now as I talk about it, you're getting aroused. No, Stew. I feel the only fair thing to do is for me to carry out your sentence; you have already admitted guilt." No response from Stew. He laid still; the pup-tent of his penis rising.

"Well, now that we have that out of the way, it's time to get into the formalities of your punishment." Silence met his statement. "Not much for talking now, huh? Well, don't worry. You're all done talking. It's time for you to feel real pain, the kind you made those little girls feel." Stewart became aware of a large table next to his bed that was covered with a sheet. It had been there since he first woke up, but he had not looked at it out of fear. The Eagle left the camera on so that Stew could see himself on the television screens. "So, let's get right to it." There was a pulley-like contraption above him, and he realized that there were very thin wires on the corners of the sheet that covered him. The Eagle had been talking toward the camera and not to him when he noticed the cables. The Eagle pushed a button on the remote, and the sheet lifted off the table to reveal his nude body and his very own items. "Do you recognize these items, Stew?" He said yes and started to cry. "DON'T START," The Eagle said to him very sternly. "I've had enough of your whining and complaining." There was a warm feeling in Stewart's arm as he noticed the clear liquid being injected into his IV. "What did you give me?" "It's a muscle relaxer and pain enhancer, Stew. It's a drug that's used when you have surgery. It paralyzes you. I use a lower dose, so you can still breathe on your own, but you still have complete sensation. In fact … this drug heightens the pain. You'll love it."

Stewart looked over at the screen and could see his nude body. He saw no visible restraints, and he tried to move to no avail. "You're going to find moving a bit difficult. I grabbed your drug concoction when I took you from your house, so you are feeling just what those little girls felt when you were 'playing' with them." Stew looked at his body on the monitors. He was bruised and bleeding all over, yet he didn't recall how he got such serious injuries. The Eagle smiled at Stew as he pushed a button on the remote and a video of him with one of his victims started to play. He was nude and his little victim was on her stomach with Stew on top of her. He watched with intensity and began to get aroused again. He commented on the clarity of the picture, and he recognized the screams and said the name of the girl. "You do have an uncanny memory when it comes to your crimes, Stew." The video went dark, and The Eagle brought out one of Stewart's own scalpels which he used on his victims. Within a few seconds, Stewart was screaming uncontrollably, pain was searing through his entire body. He could see his own blood spraying into the air, but he didn't know where it was coming from.

Stewart felt his captor's large arms grab him and flip him onto his stomach. "Well, this disgusts me to no end, so let's get you done. I have other things to do today." The Eagle pulled out a large power tool that was intended for cutting. Rather than spinning, the mechanism oscillated, and the blade had been replaced with a very large dildo. "I believe this is one of your favorite 'toys.'" Stewart began screaming as the tool started vibrating, and he watched his own face and nude body on the monitor as the dildo was inserted into his anus.

It had been two weeks and nothing from Stewart Roskowski or his believed captor. Steve had just finished some paperwork at his office and was getting ready to leave for the night when a courier showed up with a package for him. There was nothing on the padded manila envelope but his name; however, he had a pretty good idea who sent it. He knew there was no sense in interrogating the courier; he most likely received it through his company and took it via their instructions. Steve had received other communications from The Eagle the same way through the years, and he knew the futility in chasing down the folks who brought the messages. He took a pair of gloves from his desk and put them on and then closed his office door. He held the envelope with a pair of tweezers, cut a slit in the top of it, and turned it upside down, allowing the contents to fall out onto his desk. There was a DVD and several folded pieces of white paper in the envelope. On the front of the DVD case, there was a very distinct thumb print, and, on the reverse, in red and black, was the emblem of The Iron Eagle. It was an eagle with black and crimson wings spread wide in a display of power, its black head with crimson eyes facing straight ahead, clenching a black and crimson rod in its talons. On the right end of the rod, the bird clutched a bundle of arrows, and at the other end was a circle with the scales of justice. He picked up the phone and called down to the lab to let them know they would be working late.

He then placed the objects in an evidence bag and walked down the three flights of stairs to meet with his team. He called Jim and asked if he had received anything from The Eagle, which he hadn't. "Whadda ya got," he asked. "The usual calling card of The Eagle with the exception of the fact that with the distinctive folded paper he sent a DVD." There was a chuckle on the other end of the line, "Hmm…you think he's going into the porn business?" They both laughed, and Jim asked if he could come by. Steve told him it was fine, and he went on with his investigation. Jim stopped at a local coffee shop and picked up a large container of regular coffee and all the sandwiches they had left from the day on the way over to Steve's office.

Jim arrived with a large box and was greeted at the front door by security. They did the usual security check on the packages and then sent him up to the lab. As he approached the door he called out, "Delivery." Steve opened the door and let him in. "What the hell, Jim?" "Anyone here had dinner?" He got nothing but blank faces from Steve and his team. "Well, here you go. I brought dinner, and you guys have the movie." There was a little laughter, everyone grabbed a sandwich, and they all sat around in the lab eating and making small talk. Finally Jim stood up and asked, "So, are we going to see this DVD on the big or small screen?" There was a little humor in the room, but there was also a real sense of tension. This was a whole new world that they were about to enter. They had been searching for The Eagle for over a decade and never once had he been as brazen as this.

The DVD case and contents had been cleared by the lab techs for any booby traps or other hazardous materials. Steve opened the case and took out the shining disc. He flipped it over; the emblem of The Eagle was burned onto the disc. Jim chuckled as he said, "Well…he's getting downright professional, isn't he?" Steve placed the DVD into a player, and it started playing on its own. There was a white room, and they could see a table and an image on it. A figure moved over toward the table and said, "Please state your full name for the record." "Stewart Evan Roskowski." His voice was strained and very scared; there was a pronounced quiver in it. "State your current vocation and the name and address of your current employer." "I am the Coston Middle School Principal. 14115 Coston Street in West Covina." The only sound on the disc was the voice of Roskowski now. Several sheets of paper with writing on them were placed in front of the camera. Steve knew they were the pages he held against the white screen behind him in the lab earlier. He hadn't read their content, but he was relatively certain what they contained.

The Eagle spoke, "I hold before you the full and complete confession of Mr. Roskowski, signed and dated. My only regret is that I did not find him sooner. Mr. Roskowski, you have confessed to the rape, torture, and murder of seventy-seven children." Steve's team looked on in shock. Jim leaned toward Steve and asked, "I thought only sixty-three." He nodded and then replied, "I guess there are more." The DVD continued. "They weren't children," Roskowski cried out, "I'm sick. I have a mental illness. It's a compulsion that I can't control. I told you that. I'm not responsible for my actions." Roskowski may have been uttering the words, but his facial expressions, wild eyes, and body language told a different story. One of Steve's CSIs commented, "He's lying. He knew damn well what he was doing." The voice of The Eagle continued to press Roskowski. "Yes, you did tell me that, Stew. You also told me that they were your 'pets.' You and I know that you knew exactly what you were doing!" Roskowski screamed at The Eagle, "They were my pets; I had the right to do whatever I chose to do with them. I take good care of my pets and only discipline them when they are naughty." His voice was deliberate and convincing. Jim turned to Steve and said, "The Eagle is a pure psychopath." Steve waved his hand in a gesture of silence and at the same time shook his head no.

There were a few moments of silence, and then the camera was raised so that the viewers could see the whole face and body of Roskowski covered by a white sheet with numerous devices on a nearby table. They couldn't make out all of them, but they all recognized several as instruments of torture. "Jesus," Janet cried out, "this is one sick person." She was the newest member of the team. She had just graduated from the academy at Quantico, and this was her first field assignment. Jim replied, "Which one?" No one replied; they just kept watching.

The Eagle spoke again, "The instruments and tools you see on this table are the property of Mr. Roskowski. They are the tools that he used on his victims, and they are the same tools that have been and will continue to be used on him." Roskowski started screaming as a hand, presumably that of The Eagle, took a circular knife and laid it under his chin. "That looks like a scraping scalpel used in abortions or D&amp;Cs," one of Steve's team members said. The sheet lifted off of the victim on its own, drawn as a magician would remove a covering from a levitating assistant. The nude body of Roskowski was exposed, bloodied and bruised. His genitals were swollen and discolored as if they had been beaten. The hands of The Eagle moved the tool slowly and deliberately. He used the instrument like a pen, moving it slowly from Roskowski's neck down his chest and abdomen until it came to rest on his penis. A small line was being carved into the full torso of Roskowski as the instrument was moved and a line of crimson lay in the wake of the blade. All the while Roskowski was screaming, but he remained still as the steel tool was descending toward his genitals.

The voice of The Eagle rose above the screams of his victim. "Mr. Roskowski, you have admitted guilt in the torture, rape, and murder of all of your victims. I hereby sentence you to endure the same long and brutal death that you inflicted on them. May God NOT have mercy on your soul." With that, The Eagle took Roskowski's penis and scrotum in one hand and twisted and pulled them straight up. Roskowski's screams continued as The Eagle used the tool in his other hand to emasculate Roskowski. The scream was deafening; arterial spray struck the camera lens. Several of Steve's staff looked away; one ran to a nearby sink and threw up. Steve, Jim, and most of the others just watched as two huge arms covered by white sleeves with hands covered in black gloves drove a solid stainless steel rod into the hole that once held Stewart's penis and testicles. Smoke rose as the unit cauterized the wound, and the screams of Stewart Roskowski echoed through the room. "Oh my God…I can't believe the cruelty I'm witnessing," said one of Steve's profilers. Jim piped up, "I know this killer; you ain't seen nothin' yet."

The Eagle grabbed Roskowski and flipped him onto his stomach. His ass was bloody and bruised, and The Eagle moved out of camera range for a moment and then returned with an oscillating device with a large rubber penis on it. The screams of Roskowski continued as The Eagle drove the dildo into Stewart's anus, and the decibel level of his screams rose as the screen began to fade to black. The blood curdling screams commenced until they, too, faded out.

There were a few moments of silence broken eventually by Jim. "Well…that was interesting. So where do you think we'll find Mr. Roskowski and his junk?" He asked it in such an off-the-cuff manner that Steve started laughing. It became infectious, and the entire room broke out into laughter. They knew it was wrong but couldn't help themselves. Only Janet remained silent with a look of horror and disgust on her face. "So, do you still think that The Eagle isn't a psychopath?" Steve turned to the room's other inhabitants. "Look people, I know that this is a new phenomenon for this killer, but we see this type of thing every day." "The hell we do," said Janet, "we see corpses, we see photographs, but we don't see a serial killer kill his victim before our very eyes." Steve remained standing. "Mr. Roskowski didn't die as a result of what we just witnessed." Janet looked confused. "What are you talking about? This sicko just sentenced Roskowski to death and cut off his genitals. He's dead." Steve let out a little chuckle. "Janet, I know you're new to the field, so I'm going to give you a little latitude here. Mr. Roskowski was still alive and screaming when the video ended. Now, we all know based on The Eagle's past behavior that Roskowski is most likely dead." Jim quipped quietly under his breath just loud enough for all to hear, "I sure as hell hope so." "We just haven't had the … opportunity … that's as good a way to put it as any… to witness The Eagle at work. This opens a whole new window into the mind of The Eagle, so let's try to learn from this without hysterics. We are professionals. Our focus needs to be on catching The Eagle and finding Roskowski."

Janet sat back down, and Jim looked over at the clock. It was half past twelve. "Well, guys, it's been fun. Thanks for dinner and the bloody movie. I'm going to take myself home and get some sleep. Next time we all meet, let's try to watch something a little more upbeat, huh? Like the _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_." He chuckled and started to walk toward the office door. Steve followed. The two stopped in the hall; Jim took a cigarette out of his top pocket and placed it behind his ear. "Jim, you asked me if this proves that The Eagle is a psychopath. No way. He's a sociopath, pure and simple." "That's crazy. Sociopaths aren't violent by nature." "You're right, but this is no normal sociopath we're dealing with. I've suspected for some time that The Eagle isn't your run of the mill serial killer." Jim laughed, "Ya think?" "I think he's one of us." "Are you saying that you think The Eagle's a badge?" "Yes…" Jim looked around with a sneaky stance. "So, do ya think it's you…or me?" A smile grew across his round face. Steve couldn't help himself and started laughing. "Stop being a smart ass. I'm serious. I really think this guy's brass." "Well even if he's not local, state, or federal, I have to admit he thinks his balls are made of metal. Too bad Roskowski's weren't." That sent them both into hysterics and brought Janet out into the hall to see what the commotion was all about. They tried to act cool, but Janet wasn't amused. She leaned back against the wall in the hall as several of her fellow agents were exiting for the restrooms. Jim and Steve spoke out of ear shot for a few more minutes, and as the last of her colleagues returned to the lab she asked, "Why do they call him The Iron Eagle?" Jim was suddenly interested again and followed Steve and Janet back into the lab, so he could hear the story, or more exactly, explain the story, of The Iron Eagle.


End file.
